


DON'T READ THIS

by regionalsky



Category: tylersvodka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 04:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16297751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regionalsky/pseuds/regionalsky
Summary: THIS IS AN EARLY PARTIAL DRAFT OF A SEPARATE WORK. I AM PUTTING IT ON HERE TO SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE A GOOGLE DRIVE. DON'T READ IT.





	DON'T READ THIS

**Author's Note:**

> srsly guys don't read

_ a preface. _

 

_ I have always believed that I am forced to create. There is this unbearable pressure I get when I have an idea or something that needs to be expressed. It's absolutely awful if I can't get it out.  _

 

_ In my worlds, I deal with the math and science parts. However, there is much more to a story. That is where he comes in. _

 

_ I see him as my best friend and my worst enemy. He feels the pressure as strongly as I do, and follows me around during the day. He hates almost everything I do that isn't writing. When I'm working, he can't bother me, but as soon as my mind is unoccupied, he takes over. That's why my notebooks are crammed with creative stories. That's why I constantly fill my idle time and space with things that make sense. If I am not busy, he is. _

 

_ I don't have any idea how I write. I write what he tells me to- we go visit a world and he dictates to me what he wants on the paper. It could be a small room in a basement we visit for a night, it could be a universe we spend months building. He drags me around and forces me to see them. We run, constantly. There's so much to see. It's exhausting. _

 

_ Without him, I can't relieve the pressure on my mind. I can physically feel it, high in the back of my throat and deep in my chest. It's a legitimate pain and pressure that's only relieved when I create. _

 

_ He was created in the character of Will from Ranger's Apprentice. That was the first book series I started losing myself in. That's how many ideas start- wandering around the fantasy worlds of other authors, absorbing the life and feelings. Will taught me daydreaming. _

 

_ After that, there were many others. All have been male, all obsessed with their own little pieces of literature. Andy Evans, Cassius au Bellona, Peter Wiggin, Victor Delgado, and now, Tyler. _

 

_ He's been Tyler for well over a year at this point. He's the most insistent, the most aggressive. He's the most forceful and the scariest. When we get along, we create beautiful things. He's obsessed with the fantasy world of our own minds, not some other author. He takes the worlds of my head and extrapolates them. He's especially good at little moments- he seeks to find all of the important small stories that live within my mind, the ones about storm clouded nights and whatever other weird things I obsess over. Tyler can be very good for me. _

 

_ However, he can be awful. He's impulsive and obsessive. He's insane. He spends full nights writing and never stops for rest. And we are trapped, together, by my bad moods.  _

 

_ So hopefully the story will make a little more sense now.   _

 

 

 

The world, when I wake, is darker than it was before. The color's been sucked out of life like the marrow out of bones. Dry husks clatter to the ground. I almost don't notice- it's fall, anyways. Things are supposed to be colder. 

 

My steps are heavier on flimsy wooden floors, barely holding my from a suffocating plunge to the earth. The sun barely touches my skin as the day slides by. Friction is lifted as my eyes catch on nothing- not the faded colors, the sharp corners of the concrete steps, the silent glares of the birds that circle above. The day diminishes to changing lights my eyes barely flit over, fading to slightly darker. There is no true dark, though- it left with the blood. I live in an animal carcass tied to the ceiling, with a permeating ache of something missing.

 

The notebooks are no longer filled with stories, nor do they contain notes. They are blank. There is nothing to see- much like my eyes, there is nothing to record. He does not tug at my sleeve. The sudden bursts of energy are long gone. All that remains is apathy towards a colder word.

 

At night. the ache gets stronger. It's the words inside pushing out- they're trapped, but I can't remember how to free them. There is no way to get them in the air without him. They clatter around inside my skull, chipping off chunks of bone. There is too much in the way to relieve the pressure of my mind- too much flesh crowding around, forcing it to stay in. I don't remember what it's like to get the ideas out of my head, or what it's like to be untouched by the push. I almost miss him, for all his faults and late nights. He does bring peace with him, even if it's after screaming anger. Without his forceful hand, everything slams against my skull, trapped inside or out. The only information that jumps off my tongue is anger. 

 

I search. For what, I'm unsure. I'm not even certain why I'm looking in the first place. Maybe I'll find a purpose on the way- it feels better to have something to do. Without him, the worlds within the compound are mostly gone. I lay on the floor and stare at an equally gray sky. All I have to do is pound my feet against the same stretch of dirt, looking for cracks.

 

The walls have gotten taller since he left. I stumble, searching for anything among the miles of smooth concrete and dead grass. When darkness falls, I must go. But for now, I look. There must be other places to check. Shorter walls, easier to climb than the ones that loom over my weak hands.

 

The world is almost black and white when I find the door. It's within the same stretch I've been walking for weeks, but it leads to a basement I've never seen before. For me to see new places, he must bring me to them- and while he isn't pulling me to this door, I feel as if I know what's beyond it.

 

Is he what I've been looking for? I don't think I want him back. Running is hard. I just want to sleep. But I open the door, apprehension forming in my stomach.

 

The rough cherry door opens to reveal stairs leading into the earth. Whiteboards cover the walls and Christmas lights hang from the ceiling. Hands tracing the slick coolness of the boards, I step down the carpeted stairs. 

I find it. Him. In a chair, weights tied to his hands. His pencil lies on the ground in from of him. Duct tape muffles the lines of his face. It stinks of sweat and evergreen forests, a scent that sends fear through my chest. I don't even know if he's alive.

 

I don't want to touch him. I don't know if I want him back. I've gotten used to a muffled world where blood does not flow. he could bring the color back- but with it, the runs. I want my universes, but not at the price of peace. I would rather lie on the floor in agony of the pressure than follow him through another forest. 

Even though I get slashed by branches and gunfire in our worlds, it's better than what he does when we run out of ideas. When the pressure is relieved but his urge to run is not satisfied, he runs along the city walls, frantically searching. He believes that more ideas exist outside of our prison, but it's been so long since I've been outside that I've forgotten. The city is so big that I often forget that we are trapped. 

 

Sometimes, when he runs, he doesn't even look for an escape. Sometimes we just run up and down stairs, screaming for help. Me to end my pain and him to find a place to go, a purpose, just someone to listen. But no one is there to listen. All they do is hurt.

 

He looks terrifyingly lifeless, slumped in the chair. Maybe it's better that he's gone, that his eyes are dark and his lips still. Maybe. His legs have faded enough that he's almost certainly dead. We won't run anymore.

 

His fingers twitch at the smell of me. He isn't dead, not yet. But he hasn't run in weeks and his eyes are glued shut with the tape. I don't know how to get the chains off of his wrists, where underneath, the skin is rubbed red and raw. The weights pull his arms down, forcing him into his chair, stretching his chest open. His heart lies there, in front of me. Ready.

 

I finger the knife that's appeared in my pocket. He lies in front of me, heart open and soft. I could stab it. Break it. Shatter it into a million pieces and send him back to wherever he came from. The Christmas lights shine in the sweat that forms around his hairline, as if he could see the knife I trace with my thumb.

 

I don't know where he goes when he's gone, but the handle is slippery in my hand. I can't seem to get it out of my pocket- my fingers shake too much. I'm weaker than I thought. Maybe it isn't time.

 

He taught me, one time, a fireman carry. Throwing me over his shoulders, he told me to go limp as he bounded up and down stairs. We were far away- in one of the fantasy worlds of my youth, where dragons gave us rides to cities of elves and dwarves. Surrounded by thousand-year-old trees, I screamed with laughter as he flopped me around over his back. It was so much easier to run when I was younger, before we were trapped. Now, our fantasies live within these walls.

 

I pull his emaciated form out of the chair, dragging the weights with him. He shudders when I throw him over my shoulders, but I don't remove the tape. I can't release him, not yet. If worlds sprung from his tongue, we'd have to start running. I don't know if I could keep up.

 

Our home, within the walls, is a tent in the woods. We've been to it many times, even before the walls existed. Although it's rainy and grey, brilliant greens and yellows assault my eyes. When I stumble over a log and skim my knee, blood weeps from the wound. I hear his harsh breathing in my ear- he knows where we are. 

I brush the rain off my face and kick off my shoes. Setting him down gently, I pull scratchy woolen blankets over his shivering form. The knife is solid, now, and I can pull it out of my pocket when I try. The lead chains melt like butter and fall to the floor. He falls after them, collapsing into sleep.

 

I remove the duct tape, inch by inch, further every day. By night, I must go back, pace the same concrete walls they left for me. When the sun touches the horizon, I wander through the tall grasses and emerge at the dark blue tent painted with dew. 

 

With soup and wild grass, he grows stronger. His legs shed weakness, itching to run. He bothers me to run, voice slightly muffled by tape. There are places he wants to go see. He can feel the pressure on my mind- he can relieve it, he promises. I know he isn't lying, but what is the cost?

 

The city, as hide him, has become more bearable. I feel the frigid wind on my face, smell the passing of the day. The walls are as high as they've ever been, but at least I've got a purpose. 

 

One morning, when I return, he is ready to run. The tape is completely off, and the scars on his wrist are thick and strong. I rub the back of my neck- it's still sore from last time, months ago, when his grip was too strong and I lost him. 

 

On that day, the meadow had opened up in front of us. The clouds ended where our walls began. He saw the path as well as I did- I knew it was a trap. Maybe he did too, but the taste of freedom was too electrifying.

 

He wanted to go. I was terrified of the beyond. Where would we run without walls to contain us? Where would we go? Without constraints, what could we do? What was there to see other than the deathly birds perched outside of our window?

 

In our room, the idea of new ideas was addictive. He told me about the new places we would see, the paths we would imprint our feet upon. Different from the worlds we saw within the walls. It would be brighter, louder. 

 

That day, through the thick panes of glass, sunlight reached his eyes. I buried myself under wool to hide from it. I was happy in the city. Our compound offered me enough. I was not ready for the beyond. He stood and put his pencil in his pockets. We argued for hours, trading fantasies for cold reality. Which was which? The safe compound within which we were contained, or the great unknown of the outside? 

 

Desperation began to clog his voice and mind. I was stupid to ignore it, the way his words began rising, how he bounced on his toes. I was stupid to think he had control over himself. He was, remember, a representation of the lack of control I had over my own mind.

 

He swore he saw the meadow fading. I stood to look through the thick glass, and his strong hand grabbed my collar. Slipping a piece of woolen blanket between my lips, he dragged me down the stairs. I couldn't scream- I couldn't even speak. I couldn't reason with him. All he saw was beyond. Fear exploded in my chest as he sprinted towards the end of the walls, dragging me behind him. Blades of grass cut my shins as I struggled to keep myself upright, as I tried to stop him. But there was no stopping a boy who had tasted freedom, who had seen the yellow dandelions under a warm sun. 

 

I allowed myself to hope for a moment about the beyond. Regardless of my fears, there must be something better there. A reason why we were stuck in here. He reached towards the sky, fingertips almost brushing the end of the wall. I almost smiled.

 

It was not our time. He fell, just before touching the wall. He tumbled to the other side, crowded by angry red flowers and birds who circled above. The sky crashed down on him, and he was lost to the weeds and tall grass.

 

I was broken that night. And the next. Instead of my room, I was confined to a suffocating blanket under a watchful eye. Everything was watched. The pressure was immense, and there was no way to get it out. No midnight runs, no escape to our worlds. Only the solid concrete of the walls, pressing in against my mind, forcing me away from peace.

 

Now, he asks to try again. I can't run with him, not yet. I don't know what he'll do if he sees another trap. He promises he will be smart, but I know that is a promise he cannot keep. I paid too dearly last time.

 

At night, they tell me he tests his strength. Walks around the outside of the tent, jumps to reach the low-hanging branches of the trees. He is restless. He is ready. In the morning, he is back under the blankets I left for him, exhaustion breaking his bones. Yet he still begs me to go explore. 

 

I humor him verbally. In our tent, I agree with him, letting him think we will go soon. Energy bounces in his voice, his legs are coiled in unused excitement. The day means a new opportunity.

 

Now, I bring him tea with his soup. It's laced with honey and chamomile, picked from the cracks of the concrete. His eyes slide shut every morning, a lingering sweetness on his tongue. He believes it is because he still has healing to do, and lying to him hurts me to the core of my being. He has been my best friend since I was young, but I cannot risk it. I get used to the pressure, to watching him sleep. The peacefulness of his slightly parted lips and slow breaths make me sad, knowing it will be a long time before we see worlds together. But I am also relieved. 

 

One morning, underneath the blankets in my bed, I find a roll of duct tape. It's gray and dull, ready to mute. I hold it in trembling hands, wondering what it implies. Why they left it for me. 

 

Then, I see the weak sunlight shining through the warped glass of my room. The meadow has opened, with snowcapped mountains beyond. More beauty than I have ever seen in a morning. And I see a figure sprinting from the woods, where our tent has laid. He screams at my room, pointing towards the meadow and snow, the even more endless opportunity. 

 

I look down at the roll in my hand, then back at the opening. The walls are gone, and I remember the scratchy wool in my mouth. Footsteps pound up the stairs behind me, with his shouts. He is ready.

 

I look back down. I am not. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
